You don't need to prove anything

The festive season tends to be a time when we have more contact with our friends and family and extended family than at other times of the year. 

We encounter the old school uncle who believes 'kids are too soft', the ultra-woke millennial who believes pronouns matter, the aunt who is passive-aggressive at a national level, the militant worker who can tell you all the things that are wrong with our society, and the rampant libertarian who doesn't think he's part of it.

We come face to face with, shall we say, 'a variety of views and opinions' about how the world works - or should work.

Let me ask you this: “Are high-quality relationships built on 'agreement'?

No. In fact, IF agreement is required for a relationship to be successful, you don't have a friendship; you have a cult or a dictatorship.

As a card-carrying "Opinion-a-holic" this is a message for me as much as anyone else. I love a good argument. I see it as a chance to both influence others and to learn myself.

I don't enjoy being wrong about something, but if I am, I don't want to be wrong any longer than I need to be. 

The only way to find that out is to test ideas - that is, have the argument.

However, understand that friendship is more important than winning an argument (phew, that was tough for me to say! My therapist will be very pleased with me🙂).

So at Christmas, if one of your family members or friends is 'wrong' about something and there is a chance the conversation could turn into an argument and disrupt an otherwise lovely gathering - let them be wrong.

Let generosity, compassion, and humility (after all, maybe you are wrong as well) win the day.

As the cliché poster on the wall of the marriage counsellor says, "Either you can be right or you can be married."

Have an ataraxic weekend,

Nigel

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